A primary goal of neurological surgery is the complete removal of abnormal or pathological tissue while sparing normal areas. Hence, the neurosurgeon attempts to identify boundaries of pathological or dysfunctional tissue and to map adjacent areas of the cortex committed to important functions, such as language, motor and sensory areas so that pathological/dysfunctional tissue is removed without removing functional areas.
Incidence rates for primary intracranial brain tumors are in the range of 50-150 cases per million population or about 18,000 cases per year (Berens et al. 1990). Approximately one half of brain tumors are malignant. The incidence of malignant brain tumors in adults is predominantly in the age range of 40-55 years while the incidence of more benign tumors peaks near 35 years of age. A primary means for treatment of such tumors is surgical removal. Many studies have shown that when more of the total amount of tumor tissue is removed, the better the clinical outcome. For gross total resections of tumors, the 5-year survival rate is doubled when compared to subtotal resection. Both duration of survival and independent status of the patient are prolonged when the extent of resection is maximized in malignant gliomas. Current intraoperative techniques do not provide rapid differentiation of tumor tissue from normal brain tissue, especially once the resection of the tumor begins. Development of techniques that enhance the ability to identify tumor tissue intraoperatively may result in maximizing the degree of tumor resection and prolonging survival.
Of the 500,000 patients projected to die of systemic cancer per year in the United States, approximately 25%, or over 125,000 can be expected to have intracranial metastasis. The primary focus for surgery in this group is in those patients with single lesions who do not have widespread or progressive cancer. This group represents about 20-25% of patients with metastases (30,000), however, the actual number of patients that are good candidates for surgery is slightly smaller. Of those patients undergoing surgery, one half will have local recurrence of their tumor at the site of operation, while the other half will develop a tumor elsewhere. The fact that about 50% of the surgeries fail at the site of operation means that an improved ability to remove as much tumor as possible by detecting and localizing tumor margins during tumor removal could potentially decrease the incidence of local recurrence.
Thus, for both primary and metastatic tumors, the more tumor tissue removed, the better the outcome and the longer the survival. Further, by maximizing the extent of resection, the length of functional, good quality survival is also increased.
Most current tumor imaging techniques are performed before surgery to provide information about tumor location. Presurgery imaging methods include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerized tomography (CT). In the operating room, only intraoperative ultrasound and stereotaxic systems can provide information about the location of tumors. Ultrasound shows location of the tumor from the surface but does not provide information to the surgeon once surgery begins to prevent destruction of important functional tissue while permitting maximal removal of tumor tissue. Stereotaxic systems coupled with advanced imaging techniques have (at select few hospitals) been able to localize tumor margins based upon the preoperative CT or MRI scans. However studies (Kelly, 1990) have shown that the actual tumor extends 2-3 cm beyond where the image enhanced putative tumor is located on preoperative images. Therefore, the only current reliable method to determine the location of tumors is by sending biopsies during surgery (i.e., multiple histological margin sampling) and waiting for results of microscopic examination of frozen sections. Not only is it not advisable to continually take breaks during surgery, but such biopsies are, at best, an estimation technique and are subject to sampling errors and incorrect readings as compared to permanent tissue sections that are available about one week later. Thus, a surgeon often relies upon an estimation technique as a guide when patient outcome is dependent upon aggressive removal of tumor tissue. Surgeons have difficult decisions between aggressively removing tissue and destroying surrounding functional tissue and may not know the real outcome of their procedure until one week later and this may require an additional surgical procedure.
Multiple histological margin sampling suffers several drawbacks. First this is a time-consuming procedure as it can add about 30 to 90 minutes (depending upon the number of samples taken) to a surgical procedure when the patient is under anesthesia. Second, this procedure is prone to errors as a pathologist must prepare and evaluate samples in short order. Third, it is certainly the case that margin sampling does not truly evaluate all regions surrounding a primary tumor as some areas of residual tumor can be missed due to sampling error. Fourth, increased time for margin sampling is expensive as operating room time costs are high and this leads to increased overall medical costs. Moreover, increased operating room time for the patient increases the probability of infection.
Other techniques developed to improve visual imaging of solid tumor masses during surgery include determining the shape of visible luminescence spectra from normal and cancerous tissue. According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,516, in cancerous tissue there is a shift to blue with different luminescent intensity peaks as compared to normal tissue. This method involves exciting tissue with a beam of ultraviolet (UV) light and comparing visible native luminescence emitted from the tissue with a historical control from the same tissue type. Such a procedure is fraught with difficulties because a real time, spatial map of the tumor location is not provided for the use of a surgeon. Moreover, the use of UV light for an excitation wavelength can cause photodynamic changes to normal cells, is dangerous for use in an operating room, and penetrates only superficially into tissue and requires quartz optical components instead of glass.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a more comprehensive and faster technique and a device for assisting such a technique to localize for solid tumor locations and map precise tumor margins in a real-time mode during surgery. Such a device and method should be further useful for inexpensive evaluation of any solid tumor (e.g., breast mammography) by a noninvasive procedure and capable of grading and characterizing the tumors.
There is also a need to image brain functioning during neurosurgical procedures. For example, a type of neurosurgical procedure which also exemplifies these principles is the surgical treatment of intractable epilepsy (that is, epilepsy which cannot be controlled with medications). Presently, electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocorticography (ECoG) techniques are used prior to and during surgery for the purposes of identifying areas of abnormal brain activity, such as epileptic foci. These measurements provide a direct measurement of the brain's electrical activity.
Intraoperative EEG techniques involve placing an array of electrodes upon the surface of the cortex. This is done in an attempt to localize abnormal cortical activity of epileptic seizure discharge. Although EEG techniques are of widespread use, hazards and limitations are associated with these techniques. The size of the electrode surface and the distance between electrodes in an EEG array are large with respect to the size of brain cells (e.g., neurons) with epileptic foci. Thus, current techniques provide poor spatial resolution (approximately 1.0 cm) of the areas of abnormal cortical activity. Further, EEG techniques do not provide a map of normal cortical function in response to external stimuli (such as being able to identify a cortical area dedicated to speech, motor or sensory functions by recording electrical activity while the patient speaks). A modification of this technique, called cortical evoked potentials, can provide some functional cortical mapping. However, the cortical evoked potential technique suffers from the same spatial resolution problems as the EEG technique.
The most common method of intraoperative localization of cortical function in epilepsy and tumor surgery is direct electrical stimulation of the cortical surface with a stimulating electrode. Using this technique, the surgeon attempts to evoke either an observed motor response from specific parts of the body, or in the case of an awake patient, to generate specific sensations or cause an interruption in the patient's speech output. Again, this technique suffers from the same problems as the EEG technique because it offers only crude spatial localization of function.
Possible consequences of the inaccuracies of all these techniques, when employed for identifying the portion of the cortex responsible for epileptic seizures in a patient, are either a greater than necessary amount of cortical tissue is removed possibly leaving the patient with a deficit in function, or that not enough tissue is removed leaving the patient uncured by the surgery. Despite these inadequacies, such techniques have been deemed acceptable treatment for intractable epilepsy. The same principles apply to tumor surgeries, however, intraoperative functional mapping is not performed routinely.
In the past few years, researchers have been using imaging techniques in animal models to identify functional areas of cortex with high spatial resolution. One type of such technique uses a voltage-sensitive dye. A voltage-sensitive dye is one whose optical properties change during changes in electrical activity of neuronal cells. The spatial resolution achieved by these techniques is near the single cell level. Blasdel and Salama (Nature 321:579, 1986) used a voltage-sensitive dye (merocyanine oxazolone) to map cortical function in a monkey model. The use of these kinds of dyes would pose too great a risk for use in humans in view of their toxicity. Further, such dyes are bleached by light and must be infused frequently.
Recently, measurement of intrinsic signals have been shown to provide similar spatial resolution as voltage-sensitive dye imaging. Intrinsic signals are light reflecting changes in cortical tissue partially caused by changes in neuronal activity. Unlike other techniques used for imaging neuronal activity, imaging intrinsic signals does not require using dyes (which are often too toxic for clinical use) or radioactive labels. For example, Grinvald et al. (Nature 324:361, 1986) measured intrinsic changes in optical properties of cortical tissue by reflection measurements of tissue in response to electrical or metabolic activity. Light of wavelength 500 to 700 nm may also be reflected differently between active and quiescent tissue due, to increased blood flow into regions of higher neuronal activity. Another aspect which may contribute to intrinsic signals is a change in the ratio of oxyhemoglobin to deoxyhemoglobin.
Ts'o et al. (Science 249:417, 1990) used a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera to detect intrinsic signals in a monkey model. However, this technique would not be practical in a clinical environment because imaging was achieved by implanting a stainless steel optical chamber in the skull and in order to achieve sufficient signal to noise ratios, Ts'o et al. had to average images over periods of time greater than 30 minutes per image. By comparison to all other known techniques for localizing cortical function, imaging intrinsic signals is a relatively non-invasive technique.
Mechanisms responsible for intrinsic signals are not well understood, possible sources of intrinsic signals include dilatation of small blood vessels, increased scattering of light from neuronal activity-dependent release of potassium, or from swelling of neurons and/or glial cells.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a procedure and apparatus for real-time optical imaging of cortical tissue which can precisely and quickly distinguish normal and abnormal cortical tissue. There is also a need in the art for developing a method that can image intrinsic signals with high spatial resolution, provide immediate images and be compatible with normal procedures in the operating room. This invention was made, in part, in an effort to satisfy this need.